


Forgive Me, I Just Couldn't Help Myself

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 21:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18484315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Darcy is so sure she hasn't made a mistake bringing the poor thing home until she is so sure she has made a mistake bringing the poor thing home.





	Forgive Me, I Just Couldn't Help Myself

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, it's me. Popping in to deliver this weird, incoherent mess I wrote in thirty minutes to avoid going to sleep. 
> 
> Enjoy.

Darcy halts outside the door to the apartment, going over in her mind the many different ways he could react to the pathetic little thing she has buried inside her jacket. The scenarios range from good to bad to worst. She sees him welcoming her with open arms and not minding one bit that she didn’t adhere to their agreement. Somehow, she doubts Mr. 20th Century will be so easily swayed. He could stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the bundle until one day Darcy returns home to find them cuddled on the bed together in a state of bliss. That would be ideal. 

Or he could flat out refuse her entrance to the apartment until she return the thing from whence it came. Ignore her for a few weeks because he’s a bitter old man at heart, even if he doesn’t look a day over thirty-five. Never trust her to go out again by herself just in case she make the same mistake twice. 

That really is the worst option. 

“What do you think?” she says in a soft, baby-like voice, staring into her jacket. “What’s going to be his reaction? I really want him to love you, but I’m equally afraid that he won’t”—

Darcy cuts herself off as the door swings inward and Bucky’s concerned face greets her. He’s freshly shaved from when she saw him in the morning and she can smell chicken wafting out of the kitchen. 

“Who are you talking to?” he asks.

Darcy doesn’t know why, but her immediate response is, “No-one.”

Bucky’s eyebrows go up, then down. He doesn’t believe her. Which he shouldn’t. She is so obviously lying.

“So, who did I hear talking?”

“Oh,” she says, banging herself on the forehead, “right. Just now? Yeah, that was me. I was talking to, uh, myself.” Her words get increasingly small as the lie filters out of her mouth. 

“Is that your final answer?” he quips just as the lump at her belly yelps and turns over, its claws digging into Darcy’s stomach.

Wincing, her hands instantly go to her front. She sighs in defeat. “No.”

“What the hell are you hiding in there?” Bucky comes out of the apartment, his eyes staring at her belly. He reaches for her, but she backs away. “Darcy, you’re starting to freak me out.”

“Ugh, fine.” She unzips the jacket and scoops the cross-breed puppy into her arms. Her brown ears flop all over the place as she tries to get down, but Darcy holds her in place. “This is the dog I just adopted from the shelter down the road.”

Bucky has gone still. He stands there, both metal and flesh arm hanging limply—she never knew metal could look so slack—his mouth parted, and his heavy forehead drooping over his eyes. 

This is an outcome she did not expect. Complete astonishment rendering him totally mute and paralyzed. All because of an adorable dog. She hopes nobody comes out of their apartment to see him like this. It would be all over the news tomorrow. Months and months after his triumphant return and people can’t get enough of the Winter Soldier’s mundane new life. 

But this would be new. It would be interesting. Something the media could spin any which way they pleased. Why was he so still? Why did his girlfriend have to usher him inside? And what the hell is up with the dog?

“Come on,” she hisses, tucking the puppy under her right arm and grabbing Bucky’s sleeve with her free hand. She drags him inside the apartment, moving him to the sofa where he diligently sits, his lips still separated. Darcy stands above him, cuddling the restless dog to her chest. She can feel her gnawing at her split-ends, but she ignores the odd sensation in favor of staring Bucky down.

“Are you going to say something? Is this really what finally breaks the great Bucky Barnes?”

It takes a few moments for her words to reach him, and when they do he closes his mouth, sets it to a line, and frowns at the puppy. “We talked about this,” he says.

Darcy’s heart thuds in her chest. “I know we did, and I know I said I was okay with you not wanting a dog, but the doctor told us that it would be good”—

—“I don’t give a shit what that doctor told us, Darcy,” he flares. His blazing glare meets her eyes. “I have been to so many of those doctors since I got away from HYDRA. Even more since . . . well, you know. Not a single one has been able to help, so what makes you think this thing will be the miraculous cure?”

This really is not an outcome she expected. It has gone from worst to worst-worst-worst. Her upper lip starts trembling, but she bites it before he realizes his words have hit her so harshly. 

“I’m not expecting a miraculous cure,” she says calmly, readjusting her hold on the puppy. “I only think we should give this girl a shot. The volunteer at the shelter told me she is always comforting the other dogs, even the ones who don’t let anyone else near them. Please, Bucky.”

Darcy steels herself and sits on Bucky’s right side. The puppy struggles in her clutch. Tightening her hold, Darcy presses her chin to Bucky’s shoulder and stares at his clean jaw. Eventually he turns his head, peering down, his focus moving between her and the dog. 

“I’m sorry,” he says on a weighted exhale, his mouth pressed to Darcy’s forehead. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”

“No, no,” she says, “I should have warned you that this was going to happen no matter what our agreement was. Dogs have been helping people with all sorts of issues for centuries. This was always going to be the outcome.”

“I guess I really should have seen it coming. Knowing you," he admits with the smallest upward tilt of the right side of his mouth. "I’ve just grown so sick of these quacks thinking they can cure me. My head’s permanently fucked. No drug or animal or whatever is going to fix that.”

“Not fix,” Darcy insists. “Only ease.”

Bucky shrugs her chin off and lifts his good hand towards the puppy. She doesn’t let him pet her—she is too busy gnawing at his fingers. “What’s her name?” he says, and relief floods Darcy’s bones at the twitching smile pulling apart his lips. 

“I was thinking you could choose something.”

“Bambi,” he says almost immediately, grunting when the pup leaps for his stomach. 

“Bambi?” Darcy questions through a laugh. 

“Yeah, Bambi,” Bucky says defensively. “It was one of the last films I saw before I got shipped out. I always said that I made it through the war, I'd come home, get a dog, and name it Bambi.”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely name. She’ll wear it well, even if she’s not a Disney-animated buck.”

Bucky is too busy toying with the newly minted Bambi’s ears to answer. Sitting back, Darcy watches her broken boy and his new playmate get to know each other, a fleck of worry about his recovery from the Snap—added onto his continual recovery from HYDRA—drifting away.


End file.
